


If not later, when?

by fineandwittie



Series: And I'll call you by mine [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: M/M, Oliver's POV, bookverse, from Oliver, i can't seem to keep them separate when I write, movieverse, the We almost did it scene, the breakfast scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13558068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: Oliver's POV of the breakfast scene where Elio claims that he almost fucked Marzia the night before.





	If not later, when?

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a little milder in tone than the others because it's much earlier in their relationship than the others.
> 
> as always: Unbeta'd and unedited. Apologies for typos. I'll come clean it up tomorrow.

“We almost did it.” He dropped the comment casually, as I sat down at the table for breakfast the morning after we’d all gone dancing. It sounded almost like an after thought, like _pass the salt_ or _do you want to go jogging?_ , like he was doing me a favor by informing me that he’d nearly fucked Marzia. 

I fought to keep my breathing even, steady, but my breath felt trapped in my lungs. What did he mean by almost? Almost as in nothing had happened or almost as in they’d done everything but? Was it so commonplace for Elio to speak like this, with his father in in the door smiling his usual indulgent smile? 

“And why didn’t you?” Pro asked without a hint of mockery or worry. Like this was normal.

And maybe it was. I had only lived with them for a few weeks. Maybe Elio sitting down to breakfast to discuss his sexual habits was as normal for them as the dinner drudges who showed up to the evening meal. 

Or was it bluster? Was Pro merely humoring him because he knew that nothing of the sort happened or ever had? Which would be worse? And what did my answer say about me?

The fact that I was unbearably attracted to him was bad enough, without adding layers to my…obsession. But I couldn’t shake the thought away. Was he a virgin? Or not?

“Better to have tried and failed…” Even I could hear the bitter edge in my words. I could feel Pro’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up from my food. I had to focus on something, after all.

The indifference and coldness I’d been failing so spectacularly to treat Elio with was my last line of defense. But, as always, the indifference had fled in the face of the jealousy that was surging up in me. Marzia got to touch him and I could not. Marzia got to kiss him, taste him, tease him, do all the things I longed to do, but couldn’t. I hated her for it. For the length of a heartbeat, I wanted nothing more than to go to Marzia’s house and snap her pretty neck. She was a tiny thing and I knew I had the strength in my hands to do it. When the thought passed, nausea rose in its place. 

What kind of monster was I? Marzia had done nothing wrong. Nothing to me. If anyone was to blame it was Elio himself for his callousness, his mercurial moods that left me boiling one moment and gasping the next. 

When I first arrived, he’d seem an average 17 year old Italian boy, for all that his native tongue was English. The kind of teen who would be on the cover of a magazine, with pouting lips and too much makeup. And he was certainly stunning enough to grace a cover. His mother called me ‘the Movie Star,’ but if anyone belonged on the silver screen, it was Elio. 

He was acres of milky skin, sharp angles, thick dark curls, and long, beautiful fingers. 

And the longer I spent here, the clearer it became that Elio wasn’t merely a pretty face. He was actually quite brilliant and a fantastically talented musician. All of this set me on edge. The fact that I noticed his beauty in the first place made me uneasy. The reason for which became entirely too evident, the first time I heard him speak French.

I had thought, early on, that maybe he was interested too. That he’d liked what he’d seen of me. I tried to ignore it for several days, the constant staring. His eyes seemed to track me whenever I was near him and it left my nerves alight. 

So, with the sun beating down on me and the volleyball game making my heart race, one day I lost my head a little. I touched him. Just a hand wrapped around his shoulder and a moment of massage, no worse or better than any friend might give another. A harmless touch which could have been ignored if he chose. 

Instead, he flinched from me as though I’d scalded him and no amount of shrugging or submitting to my hands after could make up for the sting. Shame washed through me with the thought that I’d overstepped, that I’d forced him to endure something he found unpleasant at best and repulsive at worst. I had felt sick with it, not in my guts, but in my soul. 

He didn’t want my hands on him, that much was clear. 

It wasn’t until he’d arrived at breakfast that morning that it even occurred to me that the staring hadn’t been interest, it had been examination. And now he’d seen through me and was poking at the bruises he’d found. That he was doing this on purpose.

“All I had to do was find the courage to reach out and touch, she would have said yes.” His tone was mocking, but I'd had the courage, hadn’t I? I’d tried at least, but unlike Marzia, he would not say yes if I tried it again. 

“Try again later.” I knew my tone was snide, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted him to hear it. I wanted it to cut. That he could sit there calmly at the table and mock me for wanting him, for…loving him. It was the cruelest thing I could imagine.

 _I_ wouldn’t...couldn't try again later. 

He looked up at me then, startled and disquieted. The look seemed directed inward and that just compounded the wound. That he couldn’t even spare me a shred of his focus while holding a conversation with me was too much for me to bear. Was I a dog at his table, begging for scraps? Did he hold so much power over me, this pretty Italian man-child, that I would sit here and be content to be mocked and discarded?

“If not later, when?” I managed to even my tone and the words came out mild, but I could see them hit their mark. 

He hated when I said _later_ , I knew. I could see the anger flare in his gaze whenever I directed it at him. I wasn’t sure why, if it made _him_ feel disregarded or if it was some other reason that I couldn’t fathom. But hate it he did.

I could see that same anger flare up, even as Pro chortled over the comment. 

He set his jaw and rolled his eyes, before spending the rest of the meal ignoring me. Why had I fallen so hard and so completely for someone so carelessly cruel? Why did his cruelty, his cutting barbs, and his arctic gaze not repulse me? I was the sole recipient of his less-than-polite emotions, when all I craved was some crumb of kindness, a single moment of tenderness. A word, a look. I didn’t ask for much. I wouldn’t ask for a kiss. I wouldn’t ask to be allowed a touch. All I wanted from him was a single spark of kindness to warm myself with. 

And while Elio certainly did spark, but not for me.


End file.
